Cal had never gone looking for ghosts, but that morning, one found him anyway.
It was still early—the kind of early that belonged to bakers and birds. Emery had gone to the harbor to pick up a delivery, leaving him alone in the café, barefoot and quiet. The soft shuffle of the sea echoed in through the half-cracked window, and the place smelled like coffee grounds and lemon zest.
He wandered behind the counter, fingers tracing the familiar edge of the pastry case, and spotted the box.
Not the box of old letters—he knew that one. This was something different. A thin wooden tin wedged between a stack of recipe books and a jar of loose pens. Curiosity got the better of him. He tugged it free and cracked it open.
Inside: a stack of papers, folded once, some with faint water stains. His name was scrawled in the top corner of each one.
Cal.
Not Calvin, not Cal Hart, just Cal—written in Emery's quick, slanted script. He didn't mean to read them. He really didn't. But his fingers moved before his conscience caught up.
Dear Cal,
It's been forty-one days since you left and it still smells like you in the back room. I both love and hate that.
Dear Cal,
You said you'd write every week. It's been three. I know people get busy. I just didn't think we were "those" people.
Dear Cal,
I made your favorite scones today. June said I should throw the extras at the sea. I almost did.
Dear Cal,
I saw your photo in a magazine. You looked like you belonged somewhere I've never been. I think that hurt more than the silence.
Dear Cal,
If you ever come back, don't expect me to be the same girl you left behind.
He stopped there, breath caught in his chest.
There were at least a dozen more. All folded, all unsent. He closed the box carefully, like it might bite.
"You weren't supposed to see those."
Emery's voice cut clean through the hush of the café. She stood in the doorway, the sea still clinging to her hair and the morning's chill wrapped around her like armor.
Cal turned slowly.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Emery crossed her arms. "I wrote them instead of screaming. Figured it was healthier."
He nodded, unsure what else to say.
She walked toward him, slow and calm but with something fierce in her eyes.
"You hurt me," she said, without a tremble. "Not just by leaving—but by disappearing. I was your person. And then I was just... no one."
"I know," Cal said, softly.
"No, I don't think you do." Emery's voice cracked, just barely. "I waited. Not like in the romantic way people talk about. I waited in the small, painful ways. I saved your seat at the counter. I looked for your name in travel blogs. I baked your stupid favorite scones even when no one ordered them."
Cal took a shaky breath.
"I thought I was giving you space to become whoever you needed to be," she continued. "But maybe I was just giving you permission to forget me."
"I didn't forget," he said, stepping closer. "I tried. God, Emery, I tried to move on. But everywhere I went, I was haunted by the way you loved me. Quiet and fierce. Like you believed in me even when I didn't."
She looked up at him, eyes glassy.
"Then why didn't you come back sooner?"
"I was afraid I didn't deserve you anymore."
Silence.
Then: "You didn't."
It was a knife, but it didn't cut the way it used to.
"And still," she said, voice softer now, "you're here."
Cal nodded, every bone in him aching with honesty. "I am."
Emery looked at the box, then back at him.
"I don't know what to do with you," she whispered.
"You don't have to," he said. "Just don't put me away with the rest of the letters."
Something shifted in her then—just slightly. A breath let out. A wall, cracked.
"I'm still angry," she warned.
"I'll sit with that," he said. "As long as you let me."
That night, she didn't kiss him.
But she left the box out on the counter.
And she left the light on upstairs.
Both felt like something close to hope.